Author: Dreaming of Words (Kaye)
Story: Out of Breath, I'm Left (Hoping Someday I'll Breathe Again)
Disclaimer: I still own nothing, still wish I did. The title comes from "Breathe Again" by Sara Bareilles, which if you haven't heard you really should listen to it!
Summary: "The Doctor had told her about regeneration, sure. His current body, the face she had come to love, would die. But it's so much more than that." The Eleventh Doctor's regeneration from the POV of Clara Oswald, The Impossible Girl. Mildly AU for Deep Breath/Season 8.

Hey there! I know everybody's waiting on a new chapter for A Witch and A Doctor, but I watched 'The Time of the Doctor' again recently to prepare for 'Deep Breath' and the return of Doctor Who featuring Peter Capaldi (!) and I had so many feelings about Clara and how she would feel watching the Doctor regenerate right in front of her. And because I see such a deep affection for the Doctor and, dare I say love, on Clara's part I just needed to write it. I promise that the next chapter of A Witch and A Doctor is already in the works, but while it's still being worked on I hope you enjoy "Out of Breath, I'm Left (Hoping Someday I'll Breathe Again)."

The Doctor had told her about regeneration, sure. His current body, the face she had come to love, would die. He would cease to exist, her Doctor, would change and become someone else. But it's so much more than that; it's so very much more and the Doctor didn't tell her this. He didn't tell her that it would hurt so very much.

She had come to terms with his death as strange as that sounds. He had been waiting for years, so many hundreds of years, for the only girl he ever truly loved to come back to him. And as much as she wished that girl was her, she knew she wasn't. She was just the shiniest, the youngest, the newest mystery to solve in a long line of people the Doctor caught up in himself, swept up in a tidal wave of adventure and lust and chaos and then left him or were left by him. But this girl, this woman, has been there for him from the beginning. She has witnessed his triumphs, his failures, his loves, his losses, his tears, and his smiles. A man and his box, off to see the universe.

So his age, his outside finally matching the years and miles and galaxies on his soul, didn't alarm her. He had fought so very long and so very hard and he was so very tired, that much was apparent from the most cursory of glances. Now that his girl was finally back in his arms, now he could finally stop fighting, stop hurting. Now he could finally rest.

What scared her so much, what made her heart skip and flutter in panic, was seeing him young again his face unlined and so painfully young-looking even though she could still see the shadows in his eyes that spoke of the spectres of his formerly advanced age. She had just seen him too old to grasp and pull the other end of a Christmas popper and now he was dashing and young and familiar again and her eyes swam with tears. He looked so much the same but at the same time he wasn't, he was different and that scared her. His voice was washing over her, his hands trailing orange-gold sparks as they flapped about him, his outline starting to flicker around the edges. Her heart beats a stuttering, sickly tattoo against her ribcage as he talks about "The Doctor" that she can hardly breathe past the lump in her throat. The knowledge that he will never be this, never be him again, echoes hollowly in her pulse.

"You," she chokes out in barely a whisper. "You are the Doctor."

Her head spins and her vision tunnels, turning indistinct the way it always does when trying to look through a veil of tears. She sees his hands begin to glow in earnest now, that sickly glow illuminating his face as well, the light brighter and stronger than ever. He was talking about time and changing and she couldn't handle this, she couldn't take him changing and leaving her, it would break her…

She saw him turn to the stairs suddenly, a sighed "Amelia" escaping from his chest and a small melancholy smile pulling at his lips. Seeing the look on his face, she knew he was hundreds of thousands of miles and lifetimes away even though his body was still stuck here in the present.

"Who's Amelia?" she asks, even though she knows that she doesn't want to hear the answer, doesn't want to hear about the girl who was more important to him than the girl standing right in front of him.

"The first face this face saw…" he breathes, eyes fixed on something at the top of the empty stairwell.

She feels her body shake with repressed emotion and a few more tears squeeze themselves out of her eyes. The first face that face saw… an echo imprinted on his hearts that seemed to live on only in his memory. The one face unforgotten by the Man Who Forgets. It hurts. It hurts so badly that he would rather live in his head with his precious Amelia in his last moments than spend them in the present with her, the girl right in front of him fraying at the seams.

But even so she couldn't find it within herself to hate her, this Amelia. She could tell that the Doctor had loved Amelia and Amelia had probably loved him even more; it was impossible not to fall in love with the Doctor even a little bit. They had probably gone on so many adventures and experienced so many things together, and having done that herself she could never hate her. They were kindred spirits her and this Amelia, connected through the Doctor, and she couldn't possibly hate anyone that had such a large part of shaping the Doctor into the madman that she loved.

He's glowing so brightly now that he hurts to look at. She screws her eyes shut tightly, tears spilling down her cheeks. Her eyes hurt, her heart hurts, her stomach hurts, everything hurts so much for her and she can't even imagine how painful this is for him. Every single cell of his body in its tiniest measure is dying and changing and he will become something else, someone else…

He will never be him, her Doctor, again and that realization more than anything else makes her pry her eyes open even though he's glowing so brightly that it hurts to look at him. He seems to be fading now, like the light is devouring him. His hand was up in the air, touching something she can't see but she just knows is Amelia come to save him in his last moments. Her heart grows unbearably heavy, tears are streaming unabashedly from her eyes that she has no hope of stopping, and she can't stay silent anymore.

"No! No!" she bursts out, tears making her voice crack as she reaches for him. He moves away from her slightly so she won't come into contact with his glowing hand and her heart stings at the rejection. She keeps her hand outstretched towards him, spreading her fingers as wide as she can, just begging him to slot his fingers into hers. He smiles at her wanly, trying to console her even as he's dying and isn't that just like him to look after everyone else when he's the one that's dying.

"Please don't change," she whispers but so many different pleas press against her lips. Please don't go, please don't leave me, please just stay, I love you, please if you love me just stay, pleasepleaseplease…

He just smiles as the glow finally takes him over and she can do nothing but stare as his head snaps back and forward again with a different, greyer, older face in the place where her Doctor's once was. And she can't handle it, can't deal with her feelings because her Doctor's gone and this imposter is here and looking at her like he doesn't know her and it's all so wrong. Her Doctor is gone and this old man is here and it hurts and what if she never stops hurting? How can she fix him; make him into her Doctor again?

She swallows convulsively as that… person comes toward her, bellowing about colors and kidneys. She answers him but she has absolutely no clue what she actually said, her head too full of swirling pain and sorrow to even contemplate this new crazy person in the space her Doctor once was. The TARDIS gives a mighty shudder, forcing her out of her dark spiraling thoughts and the man starts pressing buttons, pulling levers and she wants to yell at him don't touch that, it's not yours it's his, my Doctor's, and you are nothing like him.

The man is talking about staying calm and she wants to scream, wants to cry, wants to fly apart and have her Doctor piece her back together again. She will never be calm again, her Doctor is dead and nothing will make that okay other than him changing back. But he can't, he won't, and this new person isn't her Doctor and she feels off kilter, out-of-place now.

She can do nothing else but grab hold of the railing as this man crashes her Doctor's beloved blue box and wish, pray that her Doctor will come to save the day. But she knows that is a fantasy, nothing more than a fairytale when they get swallowed by a dinosaur and spit out in Victorian London and he is still grey, still alien, and still not her Doctor.

She doesn't know if she will be able to survive with the remaining pieces of her heart that her Doctor left her, a broken bitter thing that beats wretchedly in her chest as its shattered edges carve up her ribcage and etch his name into her bones. He is part of her now, she will never be rid of him and he is gone and this fraud thinks he could be her Doctor and she can't take this anymore, this pain is consuming her.

Clara Oswald is alone with the man who stole her Doctor from her and she doesn't know if she will ever be okay again.